BROTHERS

For those who haven't seen Brothers, here is my review. Some
plagerized from Karl. Brothers is one of those movies that I
expected to have trouble sitting through. However, it really wasn't. I
think that mainly I had read so much and talked to those who
had seen it that I was not the least bit surprised. The brothers, one
the epitome of the good son and the other a perpetual "F..." up.
However, they loved each other. The theme of the movie had already
been done in The Valley of Elah. War simply plays hell with the
warriors. Tommy, the n'the well younger brother shapes himself up when
his brother Sam is killed in Afghanistan or they think he's dead. All
the while he is being tortured and eventually forced to kill one of
his own. I'm not giving away too much because even this had been done
before.

The toll on families is a given. Natalie Portman, playing the wife is
very good. Jake Guillenhau(sp) and Toby McGuire are also very good but
one of the small daughters stole the show. Her facial expressions and
attendant actions overall are simply precious. A good movie which
should, along with many war themed movies, have more impact but not
so. In Brothers, the movie never really hit on any opposition or even
asking any sort of the basic question of "why are we there" The one
brother did mention IT briefly but moved on. Being a good Marine was more
the philosophical tone. There are so many more themes that are lightly
touched which could have been fleshed out but not in 2 hours I guess.
For instance, Sam Shepard, playing the straight arrow retired Marine
father, Vietnam vet, tries but wrestles with his own demons and mostly
fails.

A last view. Why are these movies not box office successes? My view:
the 50% of the American population that "thinks" is in bigtime denial
that we are in two unwinnable, untenable wars which are draining us in
every single way. Thirty five percent of our fellow Americans don't
think at all: they support a position such as war and having their
minds made up, also prefer denial. The other fifteen or twenty
percent are simply "out to lunch." They don't care one way or another
and take little or no interest beyond their own narrow limits. And,
they don't go to movies, not war movies anyway.